Danielle Kelly on the time she got mixed up with the wrong crowd

At 27 years old, Danielle Kelly has established herself as one of the best female Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners in the world today. Kelly has credited her strong support system for her success in recent years, but it wasn’t always that way.

In an interview with ONE Championship, Danielle Kelly shared details about her younger years while she was still developing into the elite performer we all know and love today:

“That's another thing too, I thought I was around the right people at that time and I feel with where I am now, I had to separate myself from those certain people because they were bringing me down. I wasn't getting a support system so some of them were either bringing me down or weren't supporting me as much as I needed. And it sucks because at the school I grew up doing jiu-jitsu, I thought I had the biggest support system.”

Those changes clearly worked out in Kelly’s favor as she is one of the most well-known women in the world of submission grappling. Kelly made history in early 2022 when she signed with ONE Championship and made her debut at the promotion’s 10th-anniversary showcase ONE X.

Kelly impressed everyone in her meeting with Mei Yamaguchi, including the ONE CEO who awarded Kelly a $50,000 bonus in her very first appearance inside the Circle.

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Danielle Kelly says the lack of proper training led her to work as a ring card girl

Continuing to speak about the struggles she had in the early years of her development, Danielle Kelly discussed her time working as a ring card girl:

“When I was doing ring girl-ing, for me, I was in a weird time in my life and I wasn't getting the proper training. So it was hard for me to like focus on the fighting or jiu-jitsu aspects. So I felt like, you know what, I got asked to do the ring girl thing so like, why not.”

Danielle Kelly continued, saying:

“I get to watch all the fights and it would be super motivating. But you know, I didn't really have, at the time, like, my coach wasn't really helping me.”

In her last appearance at ONE on Prime Video 4, Danielly Kelly earned one of the most impressive victories of her career, submitting sambo world champion Mariia Molchanova in 2:15. Kelly is now looking ahead to her next opponent, who she hopes will be reigning atomweight queen Angela Lee. The two have been trading jabs for months.

Perhaps we’ll see the two finally settle their differences inside the circle in 2023.